Florida Gators
NCAA Championships
Stockbarger, Smith Post Solid Performances On Opening Day of NCAA Championships
Thursday, June 7, 2007 | Men's Track and Field
Junior All-American Wes Stockbarger (Port Charlotte, Fla.) tied his school record in the discus and automatically qualified for finals, while freshman All-American Calvin Smith (Lutz, Fla.) clocked the third-fastest time in the 400m prelims and freshman Mike Morrison (Chesapeake, Va.) is 23rd after day one of the decathlon on Wednesday at the NCAA Outdoor Championships at the Alex G. Spanos Sports Complex.
Stockbarger took only one throw in the discus prelims and surpassed the automatic qualifying mark for finals with his own school-record tying toss of 61.39m/201-5. Smith won his heat in 46.37 with the third-best time of the day in the 400m prelims, while Morrison is in 23rd in the decathlon with 3,561 points. Morrison still has an outside shot at finishing in the top 10 as he enters the final five events on Thursday just 219 points away from 10th.
“Wes and Calvin did a great job today and put themselves in a good position for finals on Friday.” Florida men's coach Mike Holloway said. “We had some tough breaks and some things didn't go our way today. But, we've got several guys left to compete and we just have to come in knowing that we have to be on the top of our game for the rest of the meet.”
In the opening event of the decathlon, Morrison recorded the second-fastest time of his career in the 100m as he crossed the line in 11.19. The mark earned him 819 points and 10th place after one event. Morrison posted the third-best leap of his career in the long jump (7.05m/23-1.75) to take seventh in the event with 826 points. The mark moved him into sixth through two events with 1,645 points. Morrison's legal throw of 10.25m/33-7.50 in the shot put was sandwiched by a pair of fouls and left him in 22nd place through three events with a score of 2,146. Morrison cleared 1.87m/6-1.50 in the high jump to collect 687 points, but he fell one spot to 23rd with 2,833 after the event. Morrison closed out the day by taking 20th in the 400m in 51.93 to earn 728 points.
Smith easily won the third heat in the 400m with a time of 46.37 – 0.12 faster than the runner-up. Smith's mark was the third-fastest of the day and advanced him to Friday's 8:55 p.m. (ET) semifinal. Smith is looking to become just the second freshman in school history to earn All-America honors both indoors and outdoors in the 400m.
Stockbarger tied his own school record on his first throw of discus prelims to automatically advance to finals with the No. 1 throw of any athlete in prelims. His toss of 61.39m/201-5 was nearly three feet further than the mark needed to automatically advance (60.50m/198-6). Not needing to throw again, Stockbarger retired after his opening mark and advances to Friday's 8:15 p.m. (ET) final. He'll also take part in shot put prelims on Thursday at 8:15 p.m. (ET) as Stockbarger attempts to become the first athlete in school history to earn All-America honors in two different throwing events at the same meet.
Sophomore Dennis Martin (Anderson, S.C.) entered the NCAA Championships ranked 24th in the 110m hurdles and came agonizingly close to advancing to the semifinals with a 19th-place finish. Three athletes clocked a time of 13.99 to tie for the final qualifying spot and when broken out to one-thousandths of a second, Martin's time of 13.994 was just shy of Southern California's Logan Taylor's mark of 13.992.
In the opening running event of the day, the 4x100m relay of freshman Jeremy Hall (Jacksonville, Fla.), Smith, sophomore All-American Willie Perry (Lenoir, N.C.) and junior All-American Bernard Middleton (Jacksonville, Fla.) finished 16th. Hall competed despite dealing with a hamstring injury and the Gators had difficulty on the first exchange before eventually crossing the line in 41.93.
Junior Ryder Leary (Yulee, Fla.) competed in the prelims of the 3,000m steeplechase, but didn't advance to finals after crossing the finish in 23rd place with a time of 9:11.98.
The NCAA Championships continue through Saturday. The meet will be carried live on CSTV on Friday from 8:30-11:30 p.m. (ET) on CSTV and live on Saturday from 1-3 p.m. (ET) on CBS. Live results can be found at www.ncaasports.com.
Men's Athletes Advancing (2 athletes, 2 events):
Calvin Smith – 400m Semifinal
Wes Stockbarger – Discus Final
